Ambiguous Threats and Confused Fears

With very little information regarding the spree of bomb threats, University of Pittsburgh denizens are left with speculative worries and a dimly lit path for analysis.  How do we try and understand a puzzle with so few pieces?

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Now resting (for the time) at 57 empty bomb threats, students, faculty, and staff of the University may want to allow their minds to wonder to questions beyond that of safety.  Two come to my mind: What are we responding to? And, what is the appropriate response?

Let’s begin with the first question.  Our security measures are a response to…what, exactly?

Despite full email, text, and voicemail inboxes, the knowledge about what the bomb threats say and how they are being received is nearly null.  The news has stated that some of the bomb threats are coming through e-mails from Austria and online there are a few posted pictures of the scrawled messages left on bathroom walls, but the university continues to repeat the minimal message, “A general bomb threat has been received for…”

The lack of reasoning regarding the purpose of the mastermind leaves the Pitt campus pathologizing and theorizing about intentions.  Is the person trying to leave us with a false sense of security, making a real attack easier?  Is the person just a student enjoying the mayhem?  Or trying to get out of a test?  Or perhaps someone is severely mentally disturbed.  However, there is also the chance that this is a piece of political or social action servicing a larger point being made.

It comes as no surprise there is almost no talk of this possibility.  Let’s consider the national response to 9/11: Rather than a discussion about our sketchy military presence in the middle east, we began a long-term abusive relationship with the word ‘terrorist’ and general anti-Islam demagoguery sprouted against the Muslim world.

Is there any reason that someone could be angry enough to make such an audacious and disturbing statement?  Well, there are the tuition hikes. Also, there’s recent the University decision not to allow trans-gender bathrooms.  Finally, we are forgetting the general anti-capitalistic movement—primarily crystalized in the ‘occupiers’—that may invoke someone to lash out at the idea of paying for a degree in the face of the many cheaper methods we could be dispersing education.  

Of course, causing thousands of university members to suffer and waste more money seems to be an immature way to evoke discourse about any of these issues; however, the ability of those same members to understand their fear is precluded without any real information.

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Now, rather than postulating the number of ways we could respond if there were further information to be considered, let’s continue under the assumption there is nothing more to report. 

What is the best response?

In the most recent e-mail sent out by Pitt’s chancellor—Mark Nordenberg—he polarizes the possible modes of response between ‘being less cautious’ and ‘going further’:

“At one end of the spectrum are those who feel that we are being too cautious, are creating our own disruptions to campus life through the approach we have chosen, and are consuming too many resources by continuing to evacuate and search every targeted building…at the other end of the spectrum are those who feel that we should go further and close down this campus, either for a specified time or even indefinitely.”

Casting our opposition to the threats on a single axis of ‘caution’ leaves out the possibilities of responses that are less about security and more about the systematic structure of our university.  Why not push for professors to record their lectures and put them online?  Ask teachers and graduate students running small seminars to open their homes and make use of outdoor accommodations (of course some are already doing this on their own).   Generate tests that can be done at home or in groups. 

There are a sundry of options that make threats more innocuous and our reactions calm and covert. 

My point is not to poke fun at the university for trying to protect our community.  What we do see, however, is a pattern of how the general American attitude toward dissidents and public disruption rarely involves understanding the problem or reconciling the idea that we may be the cause of it.  Instead, we allow fear to linger over aiding in public comprehension and stick with our extreme reactions over building a tactful response. 

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As I write this it appears that the demon haunting Pitt’s campus has been put into custody (though only time will tell if we have the real perpetrator).  From my understanding, a group of redditors cracked the case by paying close attention to the location of bomb threats in accordance with conversations happening on a sub-Reddit regarding the issue. 

The only question is now, in the aftermath, will we make a showcase of this person as an example of absolute evil or will we attempt to understand the impetus and rethink how we could have made for a less tumultuous experience?

Poem: The Shape of Hills and Repeated Falling

I stand up on a hillside to watch across the chasm.
Grey skies wander overhead with harrowing clouds glowing as if occupied by spirits.
You stand on your own mound,
hoping to rectify a house.
Floors, walls, stairs, and windows:
a new space for you to dance.

I wonder about the window,
You wonder about the chasm.

As I watch you build, I remember-
There is infinite sadness in the world:
Children stripped of provisions,
Mothers without volition,
Fathers strapped to addiction,
While senators vote to redistrict.
Lovers can’t be honest,
Patriots refuse to seek solace,
Combat infused with no purpose,
Feelings we each hold furtive.

The pale blue eyes that have directed me to and from sorrow glare across the hollow abyss.
I’m coming.
We meet at the edges of the dark void to speak.
“Sorry for how things are,” you say.
“Sorry for how they’ll continue to be,” I say.
We don’t know what we’re sorry for.

I continue my pacing, in regress.
You work toward your building in duress.
Then as the rains begin to fall from the dark clouds,
Each step causes a slip.
Down toward the hollow we forgot to avoid.

Neither of us have reasons for lingering on the steep bank.

We slip down, realizing we know this space.
We slip down, realizing how hard it will be to get out.
We slip down, reanalyzing each other’s disgrace.
We stay down, to hover in the presence of familiarity.
We stay down, to repeat what will echo for years:
“Sorry for where I need to go,” you say
“Sorry for where I am right now,” I say
We each know what the other’s sorry for
Our own selves left in the dark.

And as we climb back out, we promise to change.
The heartache that brought us given primary blame.
Once things are different maybe we’ll find our flame,
But now things are stagnant – reminded of the same.

Another vote gets counted-
39% showed.
Another prisoner compounded-
Right evidence undisclosed.
Three kids molested-
Thirteen years until another’s told.
A soldier gets aggressive-
Losing his liberties to a life he sold.

Each moment that goes by, the hill gets less steep-
the wind eroding the peaks of the rises we keep.
The gully becomes filled with the patches of dirt,
Falling from our hills as we re-craft the earth.
You go back to building,
I make a place to stand,
And we look at each other across the transitioning land.
“Sorry for how it was down there,” you yell.
“Sorry for what the future holds,” I yell.
Each of us not knowing what the other is meaning, 

We continue alone as long as our paths seem worth leading.

An Excerpt from my Short Story "13 Images of My Self Through a Nikon D3s"

I’ve Found Myself Here Again – Reliving the Past in Wide Angle – Image #1

As I exit my car I hesitate due to the collision of comfort and dread that accompanies my seeing the large, redbrick suburban home I used to visit on a weekly basis in my youth. Decorated for Christmas, I am reminded of the jejune feelings of excitement that pervaded the holiday season growing up. Naïve joy brought about by the cluster of events our culture feels the need to contrive to celebrate a day that has gone from holy to commercial. My soft spot for jovial gatherings becomes lackluster under the guise of forced ritual and hackneyed repetition. The purview of my visual experience buffets me with a rhapsody of recollections ranging from the disport experiences of my teenage life to the peccadilloes of my old friends who are socializing inside.

The trek through the kitchen and down the stairs startles me as images begin to disinter. I become encumbered with torment trying to replicate the view these individuals must have of me. My attempt at empathy leaves me with the disquieting feeling of self-derision and disgust at the flippant attitudes I have come to expect. As I round the corner of the stairs, I attempt to shake the premonition and search for ‘the benefit of the doubt’.

“Well hello there guys.” I make my presence known to the crowd of individuals surrounding the perimeter of the white-tile bar. Then the choir speaks: “Fr-EH-d”, “Oh alright, Fred”, “Holy shit, didn’t even know you still existed”, “If it isn’t Fred-DICK, hah”, “What’s going on man?” Each greeting coming in tandem with a head nod, point, or grimace. “Not much, I suppose. Kinda hard to sum it all up in a few words,” I try to placate the myriad of stares coming from all angles. “Yup,” says Don who then turns to continue the conversation he was having. The group resumes its cacophony, and I sit next to a friend on a bar stool who is plotted beside a done-up female figurine on his left.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” I ask as my mind becomes filled with the past context in which I knew the person sitting in front of me. “Oh, not bad, not bad. This is my girlfriend Megan by the way. This is Fred.” Holding the array of past occurrences involving Randy in my head, I know I have already met her. A sharp memory is a blessing and a curse: the gift of having easy access to past details is often spoiled by an awareness of the inconsistencies and disappointments latent within a historical contextualization of a person, especially oneself.

“Actually I’ve met Megan before, remember after your boxing match a few years back. Although you were a little woozy and it happened really fast.” As I continue to see Randy in a larger pool of memories, I am reminded of his truly docile nature - in spite of his pugilistic interests - and feel vexed at having highlighted his lacking memory in front of his girlfriend. Wide angles are made possible by short focal points. A plethora of memories brought into view, reflecting off internal mirrors to ensure each angle is brought into focus. The limited distance of the focal point provided by the large lens of history leaves me unable to forget the larger setting I’m a part of and focus on the niceties of my company.

“Oh, alright alright. I wasn’t sure.”
“No worries, it’s nice to meet you again anyways. So what’s life been like, where are you working?” This begins an onslaught of perfunctory questions about his life, most of which are answered by vague positive remarks like ‘good’, ‘awesome’, or ‘it’s not too bad’. I sometimes worry about the insidious nature of our inability to share deeper considerations. We feel comfortable with simple answers to life questions and save our words for banter and small talk. Does this numb us to our flaws, our inner disturbances, our mode of existence, or does it protect us from the reality of the mundane?

In the midst of my interrogating Megan about her job selling medical devices, I notice the mirth of those in my periphery. Don, perfectly in character, is making playful jokes about past behaviors and beating at the humor of his beer being in a plastic bag in the fridge. The group of brothers who grew up in this house have always seemed to have an idolization of Don, ostensibly for his wit, athletic abilities, and social energy, but suspicion suggests his family’s affluence, local popularity, and attractive dress and looks may inspire a submissive sort of envy. I can’t help but hear their back-and-forth as languid remarks that represent the stagnancy of their identities since high school. My judgment makes me uneasy, redirecting the judgment onto myself for discerning one form of life as better than any other. During a moment of silence between Randy, Megan, and myself, Don begins hovering, seeing if it is appropriate to interject.
“So Fred, what are you doing these days? You working around here or are you still out at that company in Chicago?” My consciousness becomes cluttered with the possibilities of how to answer this. I feel as if I am deigning myself due to the lack of appreciation and interest I suspect beneath the intentions of this question. I casually mention my lab job, but make the centerpiece of the conversation my quitting the job in Chicago. I tirade him with the disgust I felt for the chase of money, being sure to pause occasionally and ask him to describe his job as an accountant. He emphasizes the enjoyment of his current milieu, antagonizing me to transition from a critique of corporate life to a vilification of the individuals I was surrounded by in my former job. I felt dizzy at the internal oscillations of my attitude. Moments of candid expressions of the alienation I felt in corporate life accompanied by a real interest in the quality of his work life that were quickly transformed by the desire to quash his self-confidence and prove to him his own shallowness. The anxiety of dual disgust toward my situation and myself kept me on edge throughout the remainder of the conversation.

“Let’s play catch phrase,” finally, a way out. A suggestion made by Emily, a female gem of the old group I both respected and detested. The respect comes from what she has become—a self-motivated, liberal health enthusiast whose interests span from the benefits of meditation to the problems of agricultural funding—and the detest from what she has always been—a girl, aware of the power of her good looks, who thrives on the attention given to her by guys, and yet feigns ignorance when it becomes suspect that she may be merely toying with someone who is developing genuine feelings for her. Whirling around in my own head, dizzied by the vertiginous affects of being in a constant fluctuation of past and present, sympathy and antipathy, pride and self-effacement, I am compelled to run from that which I cannot.

As we play the game, I watch as the group I once was a part of reveals to me the schism that is insurmountable from my position. Finally as the image of the party begins to include my own presence, I discern that I am the one at fault. Not a single one of them felt afflicted by my company, but rather pleased to have me in their game. The inevitability of my captious thoughts made me certain that I had to leave - not for my sake, but theirs. I had a simple excuse: my friend Alan’s sister Laurel came into town tonight and he wanted me to meet her. At the close of the game I tersely express my need to depart, and hurriedly escape the inner discordance in which I had been wallowing. I took a final snapshot of the panorama of memory and moment I had been fabricating as I watch my former friends gesture me an awkward goodbye.

Serendipity or Statistical Likelihood

I often find myself operating within two conflicting modes of thinking: humanistic and scientific. Scientific thinking does not necessarily have to undermine or sully the beauty of life. Often, scientific knowledge adds elegance to the natural occurrences we are privy to on a daily basis. The understanding provided by scientific knowledge harmonizes our cognition with nature. However, an issue is often confronted when mathematics and science are used as explanatory frameworks for discussing the sacred practices special to humans. Things like love and romance, aesthetics, humor, music, empathy, and even morality, can each be transposed into a language of science that mechanizes these parts of existence. It is freeing to be able to understand why we have the natural dispositions we do, as this knowledge allows us to take control of what is controlling us. On the other hand, we are often able to reason away some of life’s most meaningful moments with the cold, hard logistics of science. Let us look at some examples to clarify these two forms of thought.

Cultural eating habits often dictate the options individuals see themselves as having when choosing how to nourish their bodies. These eating habits may or may not be fit for your biological makeup, and can often, particularly in American culture, lead to very unhealthy lifestyles. While cultural cuisine is a fascinating idiosyncratic part of any given region of the country or world, knowledge of nutrition and bodily function allows us to pinpoint how it is we should fix our diets as health problems arise. This type of dietary consulting and health practice involves a mechanistic look at human processing; however, it frees our life of ailments we want to avoid. Separately, we can contrive a meaningful moment in life, for instance when something serendipitous happens: let’s say you’re in a bar that normally plays rap music, and, just as your love interest enters, a soft love song comes on the jukebox that has a special sentiment to each of you. One way to look at this is in astonishment at how random occurrences sometimes lead to the most heartfelt of moments; another is to say that statistically any song on that jukebox had an equal probability of being played next, and that what occurred was not at all abnormal. Of course, the latter mathematical view prevents someone from believing in supernatural intervention and the toying around of the Fates, but it also takes a special moment in human life and turns it into the mundane.

These considerations become even more brutal in relation to our views on love. Romanticism is as good as dead from statistical and scientific standpoints. Neuroscience tells us that love is just an evanescent chemical addiction that ebbs and flows based on many biological and environmental factors. Further, sociological data tells us that 8 out of 10 marriages are unhappy, and that most likely you will get cheated on. So much for hoping that you’ll find your Elizabeth Bennett or Mr. Darcy. The numbers force us to see the reality of our human condition. While emotions augur us meaning and profundity to moments, these are just chemical aberrations, not to be taken TOO seriously.

So what do we take from scientism – our modern approach to analysis that attempts to quantify everything, even the seemingly elusive realm of emotional experience? My take is that we should be smart modern thinkers and take into account the patterns shown by our studies and observations about human life; however, do not allow yourself to be removed from the visceral moments that make life worth living. Statistics can be chopped up in any way imaginable – that is the beauty of mathematics: it has axioms that define what you can do, but we choose the data, we choose how to divide up the categories, and we choose what correlations to look for. In any statistical survey that shows something depressing about life, you could also re-spin and re-analyze the data to show something uplifting and positive. Allow yourself to be the judge. Don’t let statistics muddy what is elating; instead, use them as a way to navigate through some of the parts of life you have had a hard time with.

Finally, when half of the world seems replete with buffoons, it is no wonder it is more common that statistics reveal how common it is that people screw up instead of making the right choices. I realize I am ending on a pessimistic note, but what do you think? This is a hard topic, especially because numbers have become the new medium for understanding everything in life: nutritional facts, statistical trends about love, how likely it is you will like some movie on Netflix, etc. It is hard to ignore them, but sometimes I feel like I have to or else I’ll become numb and disenchanted. Any thoughts?

Challenges of Democracy: Plutocracy, Education, and Representation

Democracy is believed to be our finest form of government available in the modern era. It manifests the ideals of equality and choice that are seen to be of highest importance after a human history plagued with despotism and aristocratic rule. So when you talk to someone about elections, the state of politics, or the implementation of policy, rarely is it the problem of democracy that comes up; rather, that of bipartisan politics, ideological restraints of segments of the voting population, or the insidious agendas of the politicians in power. What I take issue with is whether or not we have a democracy at all in the face of certain pressures and disparities that exist in our contemporary social landscape. Here are three considerations that problematize democracy as a functional description of our government – let me know your thoughts.

Firstly, let’s look at the alternative functional description of ‘plutocracy’. The term implies that the country is run by the wealthy – an obvious dysfunction of a democracy. Since the Citizens United case, it has become a precedent that there is no limit to how corporations can ‘speak’ their opinions. This allows our corporate individual to be the loudest voice in a nationwide dialogue, preventing our non-corporate-subsidized candidates from having a real chance against those receiving campaign backing from multi-billion dollar transnational corporations. Can we call it a democracy when corporations—whose actions are in accordance with the profit interests of their executives and stock holders—have the upper hand on creating political agendas by carrying endowments outside of the imagination of any individual? The majority of our population is precluded from consideration when the campaigns are defined by the needs of the wealthy – a necessity if a politician wants a chance at being elected.

Well, someone may say, if this is true then voters should just ban together and find a people’s representative and the majority support will remove the wealthy from the political reigns. This of course assumes that voters have an understanding of governmental workings, structures of legislation, and their own needs as they apply to policy decisions. This brings me to the next challenge facing democracy: education.

The asymmetry of education in our country is salient to nearly anyone who takes a moment to step inside an inner city school district. The funding is off balance due to tax availability in poorer neighborhoods, parents of low-income background often are too busy working or lack the cognitive skills to provide a didactic home life, and even students in bad situations who enjoy school often cannot afford charter programs, private schools, and college in order to get the advanced education available to the wealthy. As these issues become further perpetuated, the ability for our voters to have equal dispositions to understand their situation and be able to voice and represent those positions becomes further harmed.

Finally, let’s assume that a person who was born into a difficult existence comes to realize and understand his or her own misfortunes; of course, their opportunity to vote will allow these viewpoints to be heard. This assumption is challenged by the fact that felons are stripped of their voting rights, and that many underprivileged citizens are often too entrenched in the battle to pay bills and feed mouths that they are not equipped with the time and resources to be concerned with the vote. Our former fact of felons losing their opportunity to vote makes it such that those who have lived through and understand the weight of our social asymmetries are restricted from having a say in our government. Further, keeping a lower class that is desperate and submissive to the higher end of a capitalist hierarchy prevents us from having a proper reflection of the nation’s constituents in our governmental bodies.

Each of these challenges brings into question the very idea of democracy in today’s America. These are thoughts I try to weave into my conversations with people about electoral politics and the current state of America. What do you think about them? Any one you find core to the constraints of American democracy? Any you disagree with?

The Job of Unemployment

Entering into a new year and a new election season, the question on many people’s minds is, “Who or what is going to save our economy?” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are 13.3 million unemployed – 5.7 million in the category of the ‘long-term unemployed’. In the continual search for a solution perhaps it is important to consider our neglected concept that rests in opposition, and makes sense of, our idea of work: leisure.

It may be surprising that in this trepid economic landscape anyone would suggest an analysis of leisure as way to combat hard times. An old-school Catholic philosopher of the early 1900’s – Josef Pieper – wrote about the necessity of leisure to construct a healthy culture. He also draws out the importance of leisure to our working life: our understanding of what it is to work relies on what it is to not work. With the tally of those ‘not working’ at staggering numbers, it is immanent that we consider the nature of our labor/leisure dichotomy in contemporary America.

Browsing the spread of forums devoted to the unemployed, you find countless stories of difficulty supporting family, returning to school, house foreclosures, debt, and existential grief. For instance on suddenlyunemployed.com – a support forum for those hit by our economic plummet – the high trafficked story of Gasper ends saying, “Im applying for anything that is even slightly related to what Ive done including jobs I know are less paying than what Im used to making…Is there no relief in sight? Im feeling pretty hopless right now.” What is lacking in these forums are discussions of the unemployeds’ dream jobs, the part of industry that really interests them, or what new hobbies and skills they have picked up during this downtime. Of course, when someone is down-and-out, it is hard to expect such positive thinking; however, it highlights the extreme poles our working and leisure life occupy. Instead of taking time to re-evaluate oneself and the worth of one’s labor, we wait in a state of inertial dismay for an application response.

For many other Americans the search for employment has halted as 2.6 million are only marginally attached to the workforce (i.e. still want a job, but quit looking for more than 4 weeks) and another 1.1 million have become ‘discouraged workers’ (defined by BLS as those not searching for work because they believe there are no jobs for them). This leaves one wondering what the lives of these individuals must comprise. The vision is frightening, though it has the potential to be uplifting, depending on how it is they fill their lives of leisure. Although, lack of fulfillment applies to those with jobs too, as Mark Kingwell points out in his essay Language of Work: “The workaholic colonizes his own despair at the perceived emptiness of life – its non-productivity – by filling it in with work.” Besides a paycheck, for many, the difference between being employed and unemployed is sitting in an office chair or sitting on a couch completing otiose tasks. Holding a steady job is a common form of life for most American’s, but why is it that we work?

Assuming a 40-hour workweek over 43 years (ages 22-65), the average American will spend 86,000 hours at their job – an investment worth serious consideration. When this slice of existence is replete with servile work and meetings, the desire to evade work becomes a high priority. The monotony of most white-collar labor is productive on a chase of the sensational to balance out the cold functionary processes of office work. Mindless work rests comfortably alongside mindless leisure. It’s nearly a platitude that the corporate labor force lacks the ethos of an artist or community servant. In most cases, the answer to the above question is money or life security. So what’s the alternative?

Immersed in a leisure life that addresses and attempts to understand the deeper questions of life’s values, personal identity, and what is worth 86,000 hours of self-consumption through labor, it becomes hard to just succumb to entering the iron cage. Whatever job in which you find yourself, the point is that your personal life is where you grapple with how you fit into culture with your close friends and family – work is where you express that. Whether you’re a gardener, a chef, or a steel worker, if you care about your contributions as they relate to you, then you have found more success than money can provide. So my advice to the unemployed (or perhaps future unemployed): use the time wisely. Figure out what you’re passionate about and what job may bring that to fruition. Then your applications won’t be a mere matter of credentials; rather, an exposition of what you love and why they’d be silly not to hire you.